• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to look at the difference between the importance and the satisfaction with respect to government startup aid programs perceived by entrepreneurs to improve the effectiveness of government startup aid policy and verify the causal relationship between startup aid project and business performance. In this respect, this study aims to look at the impact of entrepreneurs' perceived satisfaction over government startup aid programs on startup business performance. Major study findings from this study are as follows. First, as a result of testing statistical significance of the difference between importance and satisfaction in startup education, facility/space, consulting, or fund support field, respectively in start-up assistance project, it appeared that there was a significant difference in all fields. In addition, fund support was the field that showed the biggest difference between importance and satisfaction. Second, the results of IPA (importance-performance analysis), which displays relative importance and performance of start-up assistance project on four quadrants so that entrepreneurs can evaluate which start-up assistance projects they think important and which projects they are satisfied with by themselves are as follows. Let us summarize the distribution of start-up assistance project on four quadrants in the first place. Facility/space support project is distributed in the 1st quadrant that requires ongoing maintenance; start-up funding program in the 2nd quadrant that requires concentrated improvement; consulting support project in the 3rd quadrant that requires limited use at low priority; and start-up education support project in the boundary between the 3rd quadrant that requires limited use and the 4th quadrant that requires rejection against unnecessary items. Third, the results from multiple regression analysis to identify the impact of satisfaction with government startup aid programs over business performance are as follows. As a result of analyzing the influence relationship between government startup aid program and financial performance, it appeared that satisfaction with facility/space had a positive (+) impact on financial performance. This suggests that the higher the satisfaction with facility/space, the higher the financial performance. As a result of analyzing the influence relationship between start-up assistance project and non-financial performance, it appeared that satisfaction with startup education had a positive (+) impact on non-financial performance. This suggests that the higher the satisfaction with startup education, the higher the non-financial performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.15-25
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• 2018

As jobless growth became the new norm and the average life expectancy continues to increase, it is difficult to find quality jobs regardless of gender. In this situation, entrepreneurs who can take charge of creating quality jobs have begun to gain attention from governments. As a result, many startup support programs have been introduced and operated. In Korea, various government-sponsored startup support programs have been in operation since the late 2000s, and the number of startups has increased since. However, there are many cases where they are not able to maintain their business for a long time because such programs often lack expertise and experience. Mentoring programs for startup founders is becoming an attractive solution to these problems. However, when we look at the responses of entrepreneurs, they found the mentoring program beneficial only when it was well planned and operated. Otherwise, they found the program unhelpful. Although there are many startup mentoring programs in various fields, there is little research on whether customized mentoring that matches the characteristics of startups and entrepreneurs are effective. In this study, we study the effects of startup mentoring on mentoring satisfaction. Our model also intends to identify the moderating effects of entrepreneurs' characteristics and provide guidance to future startup mentoring.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.119-136
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• 2017

This study investigates the moderating effects of corporate mentoring on the relationship between entrepreneurship and start-up satisfaction. The research was designed to examine a direct relationship between the entrepreneurship on the start-up satisfaction. In addition, indirect impacts of corporate mentoring on the relationship between entrepreneurship and start-up satisfaction. Data was collected by distributing questionnaires through e-mail or direct visit to the participating companies in the Start-up Leading University Project, college start-up clubs, companies in university business incubating centers, and general entrepreneurs in Busan and Gyeongnam areas. Empirical data was then analyzed using the SPSS 18.0 statistical program. The results reveal that such categories as innovation and autonomy in entrepreneurship have a direct positive effect on entrepreneurial satisfaction and the corporate mentoring has a moderating effect only when autonomy has a direct positive effect on start-up satisfaction. It is implied that an improvement of start-up satisfaction may be attained only when mentoring programs are well accepted by entrepreneurs and their workers while working in a free and autonomous environment with a flexible corporate culture. This study may provide the theoretical and practical implications for start-up support organizations such as start-up support groups of Start-Up Leading University Project.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.115-128
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• 2022

This research aims to analyze of the Effect of Army Start-up Support Program (hereinafter, ASSP) on the level of discharged or scheduled to be discharged soldier's satisfaction of their military service. In addition, this paper also seeks to elaborate on how those Army-supported programs, such as Start-up competitions, mentoring, camp, and school, can increase the level of military service satisfaction. By participating in those programs, service members can leverage their time in the military to make opportunity for their future career rather than consider it as a career break, increasing their military service satisfaction. Finally, on the basis of findings, this paper advocates for expanding Service Members startup Support Program of government agencies and municipalities and enhancing younger population's individual capabilities through ASSP. This research used ASSPs, such as Army Start-up competitions, mentoring, camp, and school, as independent variables. For controlled variables, this paper takes demographic elements such as status and career path of the participants. Our empirical analysis reveals that ASSP has a direct impact on the military service satisfaction, supported by the statistics from the hierarchical regression analysis. However, the research also suggests that individual' military service satisfaction from ASSP may differ from one another in accordance with the controlled variables such as status and career of the participants. This paper proves that ASSP can play a substantial role in enhancing service members' capabilities during their time in military and that Army fosters talent and connects itself to the nation and society. In addition, this research could contribute to increasing employment rate of and expanding Start-up support program of government agencies and municipalities for younger population by providing empirical results which advocates the latter's necessity.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.109-121
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• 2021

With the recent increase in senior retirement, and senior start-ups are becoming more active due to high interest in start-ups. Research on young entrepreneurship, including college students, is being actively conducted, but most of the preceding research on senior entrepreneurship was conducted mainly on personal characteristics and social environment, and there were not many empirical studies on the influencing factors of entrepreneurship support policies. In this study, research and discussion on the entrepreneurial support policy and entrepreneurial competence as the influencing factors of senior entrepreneurship. As the independent variable of this study, the founder's competency was adopted as two factors: technical competence and creative competency, and the entrepreneurial support policy was divided into education support and funding support. Mentoring was set as a controlling variable and entrepreneurial intention was set as a dependent variable. A total of 232 questionnaires collected from seniors in their 40s or older were empirically analyzed. To verify the hypothesis of the study, SPSS 23 was used for exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis, and Process 3.4 was used for moderation effect. As a result of the study, it was found that the factors of technical competence, creative competence, educational support, and funding all have a significant influence on the will of entrepreneurship. It was found that creative competency(𝛽=.318), funding support(𝛽=.188), educational support(𝛽=.152), and technical competence(𝛽=.139), in this order, influenced the entrepreneurial intention. It was verified that the moderating effect of mentoring was significant between technical competence, creative competence, and entrepreneurial intention, but the moderating effect of mentoring between educational support, funding and entrepreneurial intention was not. The implications of this study will contribute to the research of senior start-up support policies, institutional supplementation, and differentiated start-up support programs by studying the factors of senior start-up capabilities and start-up support policies. It is also believed that it will contribute to the search for ways to increase creative capabilities that have a high influence on the willingness to start a business and the expansion of mentoring functions.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.47-57
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• 2020

This study focuses on the proposition that the qualities and environmental conditions required for exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and realizing entrepreneurial opportunities depend on the types of entrepreneurial opportunities. In particular, this study aims to identify the type of entrepreneurial opportunities for laboratory start-ups, which have recently been gaining policy level attention. If the type of entrepreneurial opportunities for laboratory start-ups is identified as discriminative, appropriate start-up support policies and training programs can be established. For this study, eight major papers were identified among the papers of last 30 years related to the types of entrepreneurial opportunities. After, the classification attributes for each opportunity type were derived. Then, the existing theories of recognition, discovery and creative opportunities were organized, critically reviewed and reorganized. In addition, the substance of laboratory start-ups was verified according to the standardized classification attributes of the revised and reorganized opportunity types and newly classified as 'creative opportunity'. This study also presents networking capabilities and market orientation as examples of the capabilities needed for entrepreneurs of creative opportunity type. The implication of this study is that it makes it easy to discriminate ontological typology of entrepreneurial opportunity, derives important classification attributes, and that it organizes them conceptually. In addition, it critically reconstructs the problems of confusion in the existing typology, and based on this, the type of entrepreneurial opportunities for laboratory start-ups is determined as creative opportunity. These achievements can contribute to the improvement of start-up policies and start-up training programs according to the types of entrepreneurial opportunity and laboratory start-ups in the future, resulting in realization of actual results at the start-up sites.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.83-98
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• 2021

This study identified the influence of employees' hybrid start-up intention (intention to start a business while maintaining a job) on the employees' self-determination motivation (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation) and prior knowledge through the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB). We used a PLS-SEM called SmartPLS 3.0 for 126 valid samples collected by judgement extraction for office workers throughout June 13, 2020 to July 3, 2020, and empirically evaluated the measurement model (internal consistency reliability, convergent and discriminant validity) and the structural model (multicollinearity, determination coefficient, effect size, predictive relevance, etc.). Only the intrinsic motivation for realizing the hybrid start-up goal of office workers had a significant impact on the hybrid start-up attitude and subjective norms, and the prior knowledge of hybrid start-up had a significant impact on the hybrid start-up desire and the hybrid start-up intention. In order to induce hybrid start-ups for workers with unstable employment, we need systems and programs that can inspire employees with intrinsic motivation and knowledge about hybrid start-up, so follow-up researches are necessary to analyze about government systems and consulting support that can promote hybrid start-up.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.151-165
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• 2020

Recently, the government has been spending a large amount of money to support start-ups with its major policies aimed at economic growth and job creation under the keynote of innovative growth. Nevertheless, the Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute (GEDI) gave a very low assessment of the social and cultural support areas of Korea's start-up ecosystem in the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI), indicating that unlike the government's interest, our perception of start-ups has not been positive. This study surveyed 300 prospective entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. In addition, this study empirically analyzes how social support of those around them is related to their entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. As a result, it was not possible to confirm whether social support affects entrepreneurial intentions, but social support had positive influences on entrepreneurial behaviors. In addition, social support was found to have positive influences on entrepreneurial behaviors with dual mediation of entrepreneurial self-dfficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. Therefore, it was confirmed that social support is a factor that influences entrepreneurial behaviors and that entrepreneurial self-efficacy has important parametric effects. The findings of this study suggest that the government and entrepreneurship support agencies need to reflect programs in start-up support poject to promote social support for start-ups and to enhance entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2021

The purpose of this research is to improve the investment success rate for startups in the water industry for the development of the entrepreneurial environment of the Korean water industry. In this research, we identified investment determinants through prior research and stratified them, and then surveyed the investor group at the beginning of the start-up using the FGI method, and determined the order of the investment determinants of investors. At the same time, we classified 41 start-ups related to the water industry into two groups: the group that received investment and the group that did not in the early stages of the start-up. Then we investigated the understanding of the investor's investment determinants, ranked them, and compared them by using the AHP technique. Through this, this research proposes five implications. First, it is important for start-ups in the early stages to receive seed investment to revitalize investment for startups in the water industry. For this, startups need to understand investors and prepare to attract investment with the perspective of angel investors rather than the perspective of VC investors. Second, Start-ups in the water sector should consider that the characteristics of the founder are important in order to receive seed investment, and also need to define their business at the industry and market level, and provide relevant rationale to meet the expectations of investors who value industry expertise and experience, and to increase the possibility of seed investment, which is important in the early stages of a startup. Third, institutions, such as K-water(Korea Water Resources Corporation), that support water industry startups need to conduct open innovation business opportunities discovery programs linked to startups so that startups currently participating in the startup support program could have business opportunities from the business infrastructure of platform-forming companies in the water industry. In particular, such institutions should help founders develop their industrial expertise and careers by supporting this type of start-up preparation process through the participation of in-house venture founders. Fourth, when K-water uses the government start-up support fund to discover and foster founders, it should increase initial contact with seed investors, conduct more thorough verification of business plans, and develop programs that use government start-up support funds to prepare a business suitable for seed angel investors. Fifth, K-water should support seed by connecting funds for initial investment among funds operated by itself. It is also necessary to develop a program that links the company receiving the seed investment with VC investment, not angel investment in cooperation with the VC fund operation entity participating as an LP so that companies that have attracted seed investment could attract follow-up VC investment.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

Purpose - Entrepreneurship promotion is emerging as an important economic growth agenda. However, in Korea, entrepreneurship has weakened because of the collapse of the venture bubbles of the 2000s and the global economic recession in 2008, which have induced the business community to choose stability over risk. The Korean government has been implementing several support projects to inspire and promote youth entrepreneurship through various means including financial assistance; however, the perpetuation rate of young entrepreneurship is still low as compared to advanced economies such as the US and EU. This case study focuses on the Youth Start-Up Business Support Program of the Small & Medium Business Corporation, and explores practical alternatives. Further, it aims to suggest managerial factors and a conceptual model for change management factors affecting the business performance creation of a startup company, based on the Small and medium Business Corporation's young venture startup fund. Research design, data, and methodology - Many studies examine the current progress and issues of startup firms, for example, a lack of systematic cultivation of entrepreneurship and startup business training, lack of commercialization funding for youth startup businesses, lack of mentoring, and inadequate infrastructure. From prior research, we address four factors, namely, personal managerial capabilities, innovative business model, sufficient cash flow, and social network, affecting startup companies' business performance. This study involved a sample survey of 200 young entrepreneurs to investigate casual relations between the four factors and business performance. A regression analysis was used to verify the hypotheses. Results - First, in relation to differences in the founder's personal characteristics, age, sales amount, and number of employees significantly impact business performance. Second, regarding the causal relation between the four factors for creating business performance, an innovative business model and social networking have supported the hypotheses, revealing that the more that a start-up founder has an innovative business model and social networking, the more the start-up firms are likely to have better performance (e.g., sales volume, employment, ROE, ROI, etc.). Although the founder's competency and sufficient cash flow have no significant relationship with business performance, the mean value was higher performance for high founder's competency and sufficient cash flow. Conclusions - This study provides basic data on policy support strategies of the Small and Medium Business Corporation, to help young entrepreneurs achieve their start-up business goals. It shows that young entrepreneurship startup firms should strive to explore ideas to satisfy customers' needs, and that changes in customer value and the continuous innovation of business model differentiation are required to actively respond to change management. Moreover, at the infant startup stage, they should activate social network programs to share information, thereby offsetting resource scarcity and managing business risk. Further, the establishment of a long-term vision and the implementation of training programs in related specific fields should be supported to strengthen founders' personal capabilities.